those mere kettle drums which you have at the great slop shops in the regions of fashion, at the west end of the town, where tea, negus, lemonade, and other flimsy refreshments fill up the vacuum, and sicken the stomach, after a spare, but genteel dinner; no, we had here something to eat and drink; and the absence of those luxuries above enumerated was supplied by that wholesome beverage porter, with strong waters of every description, from Hodges's full proof, to the choicest Nantz, Cogniac, Hollands, and Geneva. But no wine.

"Wine! we could bribe you with the world as soon,

And of roast beef, we only knew the tune."

This

The hour of assembling was always regulated by that of locking up; when the turnkey, with his assistants, made his last nocturnal visits to the different wards, and holding up his lantern to every man's face, to see that all was right, he retired, saying, “Good night, gentlemen," then locking the perforated iron door at the bottom of the great stair-case, cooped us all in for the night like a numerous brood of chickens. locking up below, however, did not preclude all intercourse with the other wards under the same lock and key, for the lower doors being secured, those of the different rooms were left open, or closed, at the option of the inmates. This freedom of intercourse frequently induced some choice spirits from the upper house, (for our ward was in the middle, though not always the temperate region,) to descend and join our convivial coteries.

After the ball was opened, and the usual routine of curses bestowed on our plaintiffs and detaining creditors, and drinking success to Sir Francis Burdett, (then a prisoner in the Tower, which conferred on him the honour of being considered one of our sect,) we proceeded to enter into the spirit of the meeting. Baddy Spearman, our president, having taken the chair, gave the tone to the rest of the company; and whether he commenced his operations by a song, a pleasant anecdote, or a long speech, his example was followed with scrupulous exactness by the rest of the convives, who looked to him as the general fugleman to the corps.

Our president this evening opened the conversation by a short anecdote of the celebrated orator Henly, which, as he has never seen it in print, the author will without ceremony introduce here; particularly as that Cicero in vulgar life had great notoriety in his day, and is immortalized by Pope's lines in the Dunciad.

"That far outshone,

Henly's gilt tub, or Fleckans's Irish throne."

This orator, who gave public lectures, being somewhat pushed for want of attractive novelty, and wishing to collect an audience on any terms, issued an advertisement, expressly addressed to journeymen shoemakers: wherein he promised to prove to demonstration, the practicability of any member of the craft making six pairs of shoes in a day, provided he had sufficient materials. This sine qua non was rather superfluous, by the way. Such a temptation produced the effect on which the orator calculated, and his room was soon filled almost to suffocation.

Henly ascends the rostrum, and "mute attention reigns." He thus began "Gentlemen, the lecture of this evening being of a professional character, is intended to rouse industry and stimulate exertion, in one of the most useful classes of the working community; namely, the journeymen shoemakers, (applause,) many of whom I can recognize among my auditors, who do not disdain to carry about them the badges of their profession." (Applause.)

The solemnity with which the opening speech was delivered, increased the attention and impatience of the company for the developement of this invaluable mystery, which, like other great discoveries, when once elucidated, appeared the most simple and obvious thing imaginable. After a short pause, a general cry of question, question, impelled the orator to resume the subject, and rush on his fate. He continued thus: "Gentlemen, although the communication which I am about to make only specifies the practicability of one person making six pairs of shoes in a day, yet, with a sufficient stock of materials, the same person might facilitate sixty-nay, a hundred!" (Thunders of applause.) Curiosity and anxiety were now at their height. "This grand and valuable secret, gentlemen, consists in simply cutting the legs off boots!" On this communication a mixture of murmurs and applause ran through the room, till some goodnatured fellow remarked, "That it was all fair game, but there was no disputing the truth of what the orator advanced, as he had nothing to do with the expense of the materials." This pleasant turn stifled every symptom of discontent, restored good humour, and the company immediately and quietly dispersed.

The applause with which this narrative was received, induced others to follow the example of the president; but as they did nothing but inroad the province, and ransack the stores of Joe Miller, their efforts were soon discouraged, unless they traded on their own capital, without pilfering from the property of others. This point being conceded as the sine qua non, the two following were permitted, on the assurance that they never appeared either in Joe Miller, the Buck's vade mecum, or the Encyclopedia of Wit; and which bore the stamp of originality as their strongest recommendation.

The first of the two following related to the celebrated George Whitfield, founder of the Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road, whom Foote characterized as Doctor Squintum, who, as a popular preacher, may be considered as second only to John Wesley, the founder of the sect, the patriarch of Methodism.

Whitfield, though he had no cause to complain of a paucity of auditors, yet on particular occasions, when he wished to have an overflowing Tabernacle, he would issue an attractive placard, as a sort of decoy duck to draw in the unwary. On one of those occasions he promised to illuminate his followers by a "Discourse on light." This ambiguous paragraph set all his disciples on the qui vive, and the temple was filled to an overflow. After edifying his flock by an impressive discourse, in which he was by turns, nervous, pathetic, witty, and ludicrous, he came to the finale of his oration, or the denouement of the drama.

At length, however, he evinced symptoms of redeeming his pledge, in the following strain,-"My dearly beloved brethren, I promised you in the course of this evening's divine service, to give you a discourse on light, and am now about to fulfil my engagement. I shall be very brief, and reduce what I have to say to as few words as possible. It therefore remains with me simply to tell you, that my tallow chandler's bill amounts to sixty pounds, and is now lying in the vestry for your inspection and contribution!”

This witty turn, given to a serious subject, was received by the congregation with shouts of applause, and the subscription far surpassed the orator's most sanguine expectations, and his followers dispersed as well pleased as if they had been at Bartholomew Fair, or a public execution.

Sterne says, that a bon-mot is always worth something in France, but in England such a thing must now be invaluable ; for any fabricators of anecdotes, memoirs, and reminiscences, have so raked up every thing they could from the ashes of the great, as scarcely to have left one solitary joke remaining for the next miɛerable gleaner.

We had among us two or three military officers, charged up to the muzzle with prime army anecdotes, who seemed to have a sort of itch for fighting their battles over again;" but being questioned with regard to their authenticity, and their novelty, and whether they had not already made their appearance in the works of Joe, the Buck's vade mecum, or the Encylopedia of Wit, the sons of Mars, not answering those interrogatories to the satisfaction of the company, fought shy, and made not a very honourable retreat. The hilarity of the evening was enriched by the tongue of Tommy Moore, which gave fresh zest to our conversazione.

The author does not here mean to insinuate that Anacreon the younger took a degree in the University in the Old Bailey, but that he (the author) had it viva voce from that high authority.

It happened once upon a time, that TG--—— Doctor Y

Bishop of C

the Irish barrister, and the younger Anacreon, met at the house of G- Gin Dublin. The conversation was desultory, in the course of which it turned on skaiting, when marvellous exploits in that way were recorded of les Hollandois, particularly the ladies, who, it was said, would travel twenty, thirty, and even forty miles in a day upon the glassy surface, without making a single slip. T- Gwho could never bear to be outdone in any way, immediately asserted that he had often skaited a hundred miles in a day! The bishop, good easy man, in his way, replied, "Then upon my soul, T, it must have been when the days were at the longest." T- "O I admit that!" This T- Gnotwithstanding, is a very clever fellow, and an able lawyer. His hobby is that of knowing every thing, and doing every thing better than any body else, whence he has derived, or rather has fixed upon him, the honourable appellation of omniscient T-; but bating this harmless propensity, his friends, who know him, think him a worthy and estimable man. His assumption of more knowledge than other people is by no means singular in the sister kingdom, for we have had young officers of state teaching veterans in the service that which they did not know themselves!

as

Before finishing with Mr. G- the author cannot resist inserting here a high compliment, and a most happy simile of Mr. O'Capplied to Mr. Ġone day, at the Irish bar. "There he sits, like Mount Etna, with the frost of age upon his head, and the fire of youth in his heart." A higher eulogium could not have been paid to a veteran in the profession.

Having heard a few military achievements, such as scaling of walls, mounting of breaches, and other of the ordinary exploits, which attend starving death out of countenance, Tomaso supposed a case, which though it never happened, yet it might. It was that of an officer one day becoming a soldier. Captain R- took fire at this observation, and was ready to go off like a Congreve rocket, but an explanation soon set all to rights, cooled the courage of the fiery Tybalt, and restored harmony. The case was that of one who had once held grade in the army, being, in the course of human vicissitudes, reduced to the ranks, and serving as a private soldier. The captain said that he knew one instance of a reverse of fortune in his own regiment. It was that of a gentleman who had once been an officer either in the line, the militia, or a volunteer corps, ending his days as a private soldier in the West Indies. On detailing the circumstances, it struck Tomaso that he once knew the man, and on further inquiry found he was not mistaken. Tomaso. " Pray, captain, do you happen to recollect his name?" Captain. "I do, it was BTomaso. "His christian name?" Captain. "E"Good heavens !" said Tomaso, "the very man whom I once knew so well in Dublin. He was the son of a dissenting clergyman, received a liberal education, became a merchant, under the auspices of Mr. A

W. one of the first merchants in Dublin, had been an officer in a corps of volunteers, and always rode out attended by a groom. What a reverse!" But this change in his circumstances, this effect was not without a cause, and that was, the common cause of most reverses of fortune, extravagance and dissipation. As for his early military services, they were confined to his attending field days and reviews in the Phoenix Park, lining the streets occasionally for some popular viceroy, or firing on the Fourth of November a feu de joy in College Green, round the statue of King William the Third. Mr. B- disappeared from Dublin, and Tomaso lost sight of him for some years; but on his (Tomaso's) arrival in London in 1788, he found him established in an appointment in the Bank of England. This eligible appointment was procured him through the interest of his friend and patron Mr. W- -, and he held the situation for some years; but here again he became the victim of caprice and irregularity, and either relinquished or was removed from his situation. He next resumed his original avocation, and became a merchant, but with what success Tomaso has never heard. He learned, however, by mere accident, the following particulars of his private habits, which will sufficiently account for his failure in all his undertakings, and render it less surprising that he should be reduced to the ranks as a private soldier, the last stage of his eventful history.

B

A lady who lived in Broad Street, at the back of the Exchange, who let counting-houses to gentlemen in the mercantile pursuit, whose dwellings were in remote parts of the town, once told Tomaso, that Mr. tenanted one of her counting-houses, and gave such an account of his profligacy and intemperance, as shocked and astonished him. She assured him that she has known that infatuated young man to bring with him from a tavern or the theatre, at an unseasonable hour of the night, four or five desperate wretches like himself, and order supper from some neighbouring restaurateur to the counting-house, and a hamper of wine, over which they would gloat and gormandize all night till they became eventually so inebriated as to be unable to move. And when the clerk came in the morning to business, he not unfrequently found his master and his gay companions literally sprawling on the floor, covered with filth!

This was such a state of things as could never be expected to go on, and the almost immediate consequence, and indeed a matter of course, was a failure in business, with a grand crash among his creditors. At length, abandoned by his friends and connexions, and driven to desperation, and impelled by necessity, he enlisted in a regiment ordered out to the West Indies, where he sought and found an inglorious grave!

By way of contrast, or set off, to the foregoing dismal tale, one of the company told us of an ingenious, clever fellow, a friend of his, who was a great lover of science, and dabbler in chemistry, in which he had recently made a most important discovery, no less than the desirable art of turning gold into charcoal! We are not informed whether Midas could do this, when he had a carte blanche for turning every thing into the precious metal. The paper written on the subject, and which he had read to the Royal Society with great applause from that learned body, procured him the privilege of adding to his own proper name, the mystical letters of F.R.S., A.S. S., and all that; an honour which one of the convives observed was almost equal to the value of the discovery. "Yes, gentlemen," replied another of the company, nothing is valuable but as it is useful; and who ever doubted the utility of charcoal? But it is much to be feared, that if we had no other material from which to manufacture it, it must rise considerably in price, and therefore become unattainable to the poor, who must in that case resort to coke or common coal; however, this grievance would be but little felt, for so they have

beef-steaks or mutton-chops, they are not so dainty as to care whether or not they are a little smoked in the broiling" This stroke of pleasantry met with its merited applause. In almost every society you find a cynic, and ours was not exempt, as we had more than one. Your cynic, or sneerer, is a most useful member of any community; such a person is like cayenne pepper in your sauce, or vinegar to your sallad; who, by the mere force of contrast, gives a zest to what is in itself most agreeable to the palate, and is a counterpoise to what would otherwise be mawkish and insipid. Our gentleman, i. e. our cynic, observed, when he heard the marvellous account of the charcoal, "that he did not wonder at Frederick the Great inviting the philosophers to his court to laugh at them." Another of the company observed, " that this was not a new discovery, though now ushered into the world under the sanction of science; for he had seen the experiment successfully made years ago, by a plain, unsophisticated man, who was neither an alchemist nor philosopher. The experiment was made thus, without hocus pocus, and in the presence of half-a-dozen bystanders. This man was a mere copper-plate printer, who wanting a sack of charcoal, sent out one of those pretty bits of gold coin, called a seven-shilling piece, which were current some years since, and the transmutation was immediately effected. Now, gentlemen, what would you call this but turning gold into charcoal?”

The company now became rather unfit for serious discussion; and began to treat with levity those things which absorb so much of the gravity of mankind. All new discoveries and inventions were treated as frivolous and vexatious, and, in many instances, injurious to society, from the spinning-jenny down to the steam-engine. Before the accursed invention of machinery, and the march of intellect, almost every thing was performed by human hands, or animal exertion, and then " every rood of ground maintained its man;" but now (as the Irishman says in the play) you stand little chance of employment, whether you are a man or a horse. It would appear here as if "drinking deeply sobered us again;" for some rays of rationality emanated from a few individuals, which would not have disgraced the sacred walls of St. Stephen's Chapel.

Many pointed philippics were levelled at those stupid sages who wish to have every thing snug and comfortable to themselves, and promulgate the preposterous doctrine of redundant population, and slily hint at some stop being put to the propagation of mankind. Wretched speculators! would there were

"Placed in every honest hand a whip,

To lash such rascals naked through the world."

SHAKSPEARE.

No! increase of population must always be considered as one of the wisest dispensations of Providence, and the employment of its population should be considered as the first care and wisest policy of every government. The happiness and strength of a nation must depend on the hardiness of its inhabitants, and must substantially depend on the prevalence of manual labour; and where this is neglected, men become an enervated and dwindled race. Besides, what has your steam-engine and your cast iron done for us? Not to mention the gas, whose frequent explosions threaten one day to blow up Babylon itself. It is true, that by the mere force of steam, you are now wafted like a smack across the Atlantic, and we are told that the very paving stones for the streets of London will soon be manufactured of cast iron! This will not, nor it cannot, come to good.

What the latter has done, or is likely to do, for us in the way of roofing our houses, Mr. M- and the proprietors of the Brunswick Theatre